Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times
Outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“To say that I grew up eating those dirty-water dogs on the street is an understatement,” Alexandra Guarnaschelli told me when we got to talking about New York hot dogs for this week’s Dining article. “I have a very important memory of my father picking me up from school every day, and we would walk to the corner and we would eat a hot dog together.”
Ms. Guarnaschelli, the chef behind Butter and the Darby, spent her childhood years on the Upper West Side. I didn’t, but I can’t shake a similar memory.
During the 1970s, whenever my father would take the family into Manhattan to catch, say, “The Wiz” or “The Magic Show” on Broadway (Doug Henning! yes!), the adventure would be more or less certified (in the face of maternal resistance, I would guess) by the downing of a frank. A frank that was snatched with tongs from a tantalizing/nauseating bath of pushcart broth.
You were in New York, you got a dirty-water dog. It’s just what was done.
It’s not necessarily what you do now, though.
Not automatically.
Now you might get a dog griddled in butter from the guy who spoons up your lunchtime biryani. You might head over to Shake Shack, Danny Meyer’s gleamingly nostalgic nod to American fast food. (Shake Shack has a griddled New York dog on the menu, and Chicago-style, too.) Or if you happen to find yourself near the intersection of Third Avenue and 86th Street, you might join the line along the counter at Papaya King, the urban-tropicalia landmark that has recently been spruced up.
Then again, you might opt for the guilt-free gratification of an “herbivore,” a veggie soy dog on whole-wheat flatbread from one of those clean and pretty Good to Go Organics carts in Central Park or down at Chelsea Piers. You might head over to Crif Dogs in the East Village to test the resilience of your arteries with a deep-fried number wrapped in a crackling bacon embrace. Or you might skip the whole idea and score a lobster roll instead. From a truck.
It’s way too early to talk about the demise of the dirty-water dog, true, but there’s no denying the evidence: this iconic Gotham sidewalk snack is starting to face some stiff (or maybe floppy) competition.
So tell us, New York. (And, sure, anyone who’s ever been to New York.) How do you like your hot dogs?